


Bargain At The Price

by astolat



Series: POI works [8]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Dominance, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 09:48:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/685586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astolat/pseuds/astolat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So we'll be crashing the party?" John said.</p><p>"In a manner of speaking," Harold said. "I've taken the liberty of hacking their fairly unsophisticated database to put you on the list of, shall we say, merchandise."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bargain At The Price

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [[翻译]Bargain at a price / 讨价还价](https://archiveofourown.org/works/716294) by [lotusfire666](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotusfire666/pseuds/lotusfire666)
  * Translation into 中文 available: [【翻译】Bargain At The Price 讨价还价 By astolat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/737261) by [lotusfire666](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotusfire666/pseuds/lotusfire666)
  * Translation into Русский available: [По сходной цене](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2373788) by [Fandom_Person_of_Interest_2014](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fandom_Person_of_Interest_2014/pseuds/Fandom_Person_of_Interest_2014)



> With many many thanks to Cesperanza and lim! <3

"So she's a nice rich lady who gives lots of money to charity, her niece and nephew don't want her dead, and she barely leaves the house," Reese said, looking at the picture of Lydia Althorpe: an older woman with dark hair drawn back in a smooth bun, cool clear grey eyes, a slim black sheath of a dress. "What else?"

"There is nothing else," Harold said. Reese turned and gave him a raised eyebrow; Harold frowned back at him. "You do recall my saying she barely leaves the house? She also has an excellent security system, and the building itself has a large and highly trained staff. Access to either her person or her home has proven almost impossible to arrange."

"Stage a fire alarm, clear the building?" John said.

"Possible, but I think unnecessary. Those same qualities make any attempt to get at her in her home very difficult. It's reasonably certain that anyone who means her ill is going to try to take advantage of a particular and predictable window of opportunity this evening," Harold said, and slid the heavy, cream-colored envelope across the desk.

Reese picked it up. "The Forty-Third Annual Circean Society charity auction?"

"Yes," Harold said. "The Circean Society is a small and fairly obscure organization that was once murkily involved in city politics, but for the last few decades has done very little other than run the annual auction, which benefits AIDS charities. The auction and the subsequent private dinner is one of the very few events that Ms. Althorpe attends outside her home. She's gone every year since her college graduation."

"So we'll be crashing the party?" John said.

"In a manner of speaking," Harold said. "I've taken the liberty of hacking their fairly unsophisticated database to put you on the list of, shall we say, merchandise."

"What?" Reese said, blinking.

Harold wasn't above enjoying the situation. "The auction is for dinner companions," he said blandly. "Ms. Althorpe regularly purchases one for the evening."

"How am I supposed to get her to buy _me_?" John said.

"You aren't," Harold said. "Ms. Althorpe only purchases female companions—and in fact, only the same individual: a Mrs. Cecilia Grant, a friend from college who also attends the auction annually."

"You think she might be the threat?" John said.

"Possibly," Harold said, handing him a photograph of Mrs. Grant—not a very attractive picture: she looked rather faded and tired, with limp blond hair and a thin face, "although travel records show she occasionally visits Manhattan for a weekend and appears to stay with Ms. Althorpe, so she would have more opportunities than most."

Reese nodded, studying the photo. "What's the plan?"

"From what I've been able to determine of the dinner plans, the seating arrangements follow the auction order," Harold said. "I've inserted you into the bidding directly after Mrs. Grant. I'll purchase you—" Reese gave him a sardonic look; Harold met it with a perfectly straight face, "—and we'll be seated beside them. That should give us ample opportunity to clone her cell phone and gather any information we need—or, for that matter, to avert any threat that presents itself during the course of the evening."

"What if someone outbids you?" Reese said dryly.

"I assure you, Mr. Reese, I'm prepared to pay whatever sum is necessary," Harold said.

#

However, it did _not_ seem necessary, in his opinion, for Reese to do everything in his power to drive up the bidding. The tuxedo had been Harold's own selection, so he couldn't very well complain, but Reese hadn't needed to slide the jacket off, nor sling it over his shoulder and prowl the platform with so much deliberate sensuality. Reese caught his eye as the bidding topped six hundred thousand and didn't even try to conceal his smirk; Harold gave him an annoyed narrow look and raised his bid paddle again to take it to seven.

He had already been somewhat taken aback by the sheer ferocious height of the bidding. The participants were of course bidding not only on the companions, but to gain access to the dinner at all, since only winners were allowed to enter; but the intensity—and the numbers being put up—seemed out of scale even for the most rabidly status-seeking New York socialite. More than half the companions had gone for six-digit figures, and three so far had gone for more than a million.

Reese tugged his bowtie loose, rolling his impressive shoulders in his crisp white shirt. "One million," a woman called out from the far side of the room.

Four companions. Harold compressed his lips and raised his paddle again.

"Yes, thank you for that," he said to Reese under his breath with something of a bite, as he arranged a grotesquely large wire transfer to the Circean Society and handed the form over to the politely waiting attendant.

"Come on, Harold, It's for a good cause," Reese said, cheerful and unrepentant, bowtie dangling loose from his collar, his jacket still slung over his shoulder.

"If you'll just sign the waiver, gentlemen," the attendant said, slipping them each a five-page document; even a cursory glance showed Harold a rather astonishing list of nondisclosure and indemnification provisions, including for death, grievous bodily harm, and harassment. Reese was glancing at him with raised eyebrows, waiting; Harold signed the document swiftly, and Reese followed his lead.

"That seemed a little excessive for a dinner party," Reese murmured, as they were finally shown through to an elevator.

"Yes," Harold said. "Of course, neither of the names we signed with have legal standing, in any case."

The elevator took them down three stories, and opened onto a dark-paneled anteroom, unusually warm, with two attendants waiting to either side of a red-curtained doorway: young women in dark clothing. They smiled at Harold; one of them said, "Congratulations on your purchase, Mr. Tanager. If you'll bring your property this way," and led the way through the curtains.

Harold darted one appalled glance at Reese, whose face had taken on the perfect blankness of concealed, rising mirth, and then helplessly followed the young woman into a hallway and to a closed door. She unlocked the door and opened it to reveal an opulent dressing room, complete with a well-padded settee and several mirrors, and a wardrobe. She handed Harold the key and a small flat box. "Once your property is completely undressed and properly leashed, you can bring him down the hall and one of the ushers will seat you. Please enjoy your dinner."

The door closed behind her. Harold stood a moment, then opened the box: it was indeed a slim leather collar, with a tidily coiled leash attached to a metal loop.

"Well, now I know why they asked for my neck size backstage," Reese said. His eyes were alight with laughter.

Harold pursed his mouth and glared at him. "If you can restrain your levity, Mr. Reese," he said, "we'll need to come up with an excuse for leaving -- " He stopped, gawking; Reese was tossing aside his tie and unbuttoning his shirt.

Reese raised an eyebrow. "Harold, we can't leave. You were right, it's going to happen _here._ "

"It can't," Harold said, trying not to stare at the increasingly broad expanse of exposed chest. "We can't be sure of -- it's certainly not going to happen in front of a roomful of witnesses—"

"You think any of these people are going to call 911?" Reese shook his head. "No, Harold. Whatever happens here, stays here. If it goes down looking anything like an accident, you can bet they're going to make sure it stays that way. Getting a roomful of wealthy, respectable citizens to all help with a cover-up? I'd have used this scenario in a heartbeat."

"But what do you propose we do?" Harold said, controlling his voice with an effort; Reese was peeling out of his shirt altogether. "Mr. Reese, I am not going to _molest_ you in front of an audience!"

Reese put on a hurt expression. "Buyer's remorse, Harold? After everything we've been through?" He tossed his shirt and jacket over; Harold caught them instinctively, spluttering. "Harold, you're worrying too much. No one is going to tell you what to do with your extremely expensive slave. You're going to be in control in there—we're going to do whatever you want."

He reached for his belt. Harold turned abruptly to the wardrobe and busied himself hanging the clothing up; he needed a moment to collect himself. He by no means needed the opportunity to do _whatever he wanted_ with Reese: not every temptation deserved to be yielded to, Oscar Wilde notwithstanding.

But he could hardly compound the awkwardness and unpleasantness of this for Reese by blurting out _that_ particular difficulty: that Harold had too _little_ objection to the situation was his own problem to manage. Reese had made an uncomfortably good argument, and he was hardly wrong to suggest that their brief participation in a domination game was not a greater evil than an innocent woman's death. If Harold couldn't contrive some better solution, some other way to protect Lydia Althorpe—

"Perhaps we can identify the threat more easily than I had realized," he said abruptly, turning back around; he stopped and swallowed. Reese was sliding his briefs down the long muscled length of his legs now, stepping out of them; he straightened up completely naked, all the lean hard strength of him on display. Harold swallowed again. John was of course a pleasure to look at for anyone who could appreciate a male body, even aesthetically. Harold was entirely unable to convince himself his own appreciation _was_ purely aesthetic, despite his many years spent in the Patron's Circle of many of New York's most important art institutions.

Reese raised an eyebrow. Harold forced himself to continue. "I had assumed Cecilia Grant was only an old friend," he said. "Obviously, that's not the case. If her husband has learned about the—the real nature of this event—" He already had his cellphone out and was typing quickly with his thumbs; it also gave him an excellent excuse for looking elsewhere than at Reese. "There," he said, bringing up a photograph of Mr. Jefferson Grant, a heavy-jowled man, unsmiling in his driver's license photo.

"They met in church," he went on, hurriedly, as Reese came close to look over his shoulder. "Seven children, youngest in elementary school—financials look reasonable; a sensible mortgage—superficially a happy couple—" He was already running more searches.

"Except for how Mrs. Grant spends one day a year as a sex slave for her college roommate," John said. "Any chance he's in the city?"

"I'm looking up his credit cards now," Harold said. "Last charge was—" He grimaced in disappointment. "Half an hour ago at a gas station near his home. He filled his tank, purchased three packs of hot dogs, several bags of chips, and a case of beer."

"Doesn't sound like prep for murdering his wife's lover four hundred miles away," John said.

"No," Harold said. The evidence could have been faked—well, Harold would certainly have faked something of the sort, if he'd been planning a murder—but somehow he doubted Jefferson Grant had done so. "And," trying one pass over social networking, "his last Friendczar status says he's about to host half a dozen friends to watch the local football game."

John patted him on the shoulder; Harold tried not to notice how close John's body was. "Better luck next time, Finch," John said. "But for now—"

Harold followed his gaze to the leather collar on the small end table before them and somewhat futilely tried not to imagine what it would be like to put it around John's throat, to assert _possession_ ; what it would be like to have Reese willingly submit to that. He watched John reach out and pick it up -- and then John turned and held it out to him, across his palm.

Harold stared at it for a helpless moment: smooth, fine leather; it would neither chafe nor abrade. He drew a deep breath and took it. Of course it was simply inconvenient to buckle a collar on one's own neck. Only it was somewhat difficult to keep that in mind, with John lifting his chin slightly, baring his throat, and his own fingers brushing John's warm skin as he carefully secured it. His hands were steady as he buckled it, which surprised him; it seemed to him they ought to have trembled. He took up the other end of the leash and led the way out of the room, careful to leave plenty of slack between them despite the rather abbreviated length.

#

"Okay," John said under his breath, "so this might get a little complicated."

"Really, Mr. Reese, I can't imagine what you mean," Harold said dryly, equally soft.

They'd been shown not to a table but to a large couch in red velvet, with a side table designed to slide over it. There were twenty identical seating arrangements, arranged in a close circle, each one both offering an excellent vantage point, and clearly intended to create a tableau for all the others to enjoy in turn.

The room's lighting was nearly all candlelight, dim enough to obscure faces more than a few places distant, and generous enough to give the whole scene an erotic rather than vulgar quality, making broad movements subtle and softening any imperfections. Only one soft spotlight shone, presently focused directly on the first of the couches, where a tall, rangy woman was enthusiastically paddling an equally enthusiastic man—judging by his loud cries -- who had been blindfolded and bound with his wrists at the small of his back. Looking up, Harold saw the spotlight hung from a track above: it was clearly going to be directed at each couch in turn.

Fortunately, Reese had come relatively late in the bidding: fifteen of the buyers were ahead of them, which at least gave them some time before _they_ would presumably be expected to put on a show. Harold glanced over at the next couch: Lydia Althorpe was reclined along the length of the couch, with Cecilia Grant curled on the floor near her head. Lydia was stroking her hand through Cecilia's hair, murmuring something to her softly. Cecilia was leaning against the couch, her face dreamy and glad; she looked utterly different from the tired woman of her photograph.

But there was something at once fierce and unhappy in Lydia's face: the sort of expression one might wear, Harold supposed, during the one day a year your lover gave you, stolen from her husband and family. It was forbidding. None of the couples were speaking to one another in any case, and Lydia did not so much as glance their way, or even look at the ongoing performance: it was obvious she was utterly engrossed in Cecilia. Harold couldn't see how to strike up a conversation.

Like most Manhattan women, however, Lydia automatically kept her handbag by her barring surgical removal: it was sitting by one of the feet of the couch. Harold eased his cell phone from his pocket, concealing it from view, and triggered it to force pair with hers, for whatever good that would do. If John was right and the attempt on Lydia's life was coming here, she wouldn't be having any conversations on her cell phone beforehand.

There was at least a substantial photo folder to poke around: he fed the contents to his server and added a quick and circumspect video taken of the room through the camera in his eyeglass frame; he'd be alerted if the computer found a facial match among her photographs for anyone in the room. Or for that matter a match on something else; this would certainly provide an excellent test case for the body recognition algorithm he'd been fiddling with in his spare time.

When Harold looked up, John was glancing a question at him; Harold shook his head: nothing for now. John nodded slightly and took up a position of casual parade rest; his eyes were scanning the room, going from one server to another. Harold slipped the phone into his pocket again just before their own waiter came by with champagne in a bucket, a single glass, and a plate of ripe cut fruit offered with no utensils.

The occupants of the couch on their other side had just arrived, another male couple: a slim young man, sandy-haired, with downcast eyes; his owner for the evening was a bearded gentleman, considerably older. Lydia did glance away from Cecilia for a moment this time, and she and the man exchanged brief nods before turning back to their own partners. A quick peek into the society's records—Harold had earlier coded himself a convenient back door—gave Harold the name Jacob Astin; the younger man's name was Michael Greene. Astin had bought him the previous year as well.

He snapped quick photographs of them with his glasses and added them to the facial recognition search as well; he was debating filtering down the search to long-time attendees when John abruptly kneeled by his side and reached for the champagne. John raised his eyebrows meaningfully, a reminder Harold was supposed to be playing along; he opened the bottle and poured Harold's glass full with elaborate care, not a single foaming bubble allowed to escape, and offered it to him with both hands, his head gracefully bent.

He made a truly excellent slave. Harold unhappily took the champagne and took a single swallow, considering his options. The rest of the buyers had come in, and most of the couples were growing increasingly intimate; Lydia was kissing Cecilia passionately between bites of fruit, leaving streaks of juice gleaming on her bare shoulders in the candlelight. Astin was picking apart the fruit with his fingers and feeding bites to his lover, who turned his face up for them with ecstatic submission. The spotlight had shifted to the second couch, where a man was crushing fruit over the skin of a voluptuous woman, smearing it on her breasts and licking and biting it off; she was making soft moans and writhing.

Harold took a deep breath and tried to set boundaries in his mind: he had to constrain the problem. Gross humiliation was too distasteful; physical contact was too appealing. He didn't trust himself to begin by touching Reese intimately and not end by crossing a line into violation.

Control, discipline, seemed the best option; the most natural for Reese himself, well trained to obey orders, and not entirely divorced from their real relationship. It made excellent sense. Harold forced himself to ignore that it was also distressingly satisfying. He set the glass aside on the table and leaned back into the couch, settling himself comfortably. "The plate," he said, keeping his voice level.

Reese promptly took the plate and presented it at exactly the right height for Harold to eat from while reclining comfortably. The fruit was excellent, ripe and sweet and dripping with juice; without prompting, Reese shifted to keep the plate beneath Harold's hand as he lifted pieces to his mouth, protecting his clothing.

Harold waved Reese to set the plate aside after six bites: he thought that would serve for window dressing. He looked with some distaste at his fruit-sticky hand, a few drops of juice trickling over his wrist; there was no napkin. And then abruptly John murmured very softly, "Don't freak out on me, Harold, but I think we're getting conspicuous," and leaned in, his dark head bending lower, and—Harold froze as John's tongue curled over his wrist, lapping away the dripping trail.

He forced himself to hold still, to keep his hand steady and his face impassive. John was licking the hollow of his palm clean with small precise strokes of the tip of his tongue. Harold breathed very carefully and evenly while John sucked his fingers clean, one after another, methodical.

John sat back on his heels afterwards, eyes still downcast. He'd clasped his hands behind his back. There was a faint flush in his cheeks: embarrassment perhaps. Harold forced himself to say, "Good," keeping his voice unemotional. He allowed himself one touch: he stroked the back of his knuckles gently down John's cheek, letting his thumb brush the faint line of stubble, a gesture of approval that he hoped John would recognize as real and not merely performative.

John's shoulders relaxed slightly, eased back. He was—Harold couldn't help but notice that John was half-erect, his cock swelling against his thigh; he himself was badly aroused as well, and while a Kilgour suit hid many sins, even its powers had limits. He looked away and let his eyes briefly roam over the other couches; at least there was voyeurism to conveniently bear the blame.

The servers were coming back to clear away the fruit, and then returning, each with a large tray covered in black velvet: no food, only an assortment of small objects: wide silk ribbons, well-padded shackles, smooth rings of metal in varying sizes, peculiar small clamps and small blunt plugs.

The spotlight shifted again, by now on the fifth couple, a woman with a male slave; as she blindfolded him and pushed him down, reaching for a pair of cuffs that fit neatly through a ring set into the arm of the couch, Harold could see others around the room making their own selections: they were evidently moving through courses here.

Reese could see the tray laid out, the waiter holding it patiently between them; Harold waited for him to object, to put a stop to this. But John didn't move, didn't say anything. Harold stared down at the array. He could all too easily, dizzyingly, imagine using them. Lacing silk ribbons around John's wrists, tying them loosely at the small of his back and leaving the ends in John's hands, making John choose to keep himself bound; fastening the tiny elegant nipple clamps, screwing them just to the point where John would inhale sharply, at the threshold of pain but not over it; he could imagine sliding the blindfold over John's eyes, the intense pleasure of John allowing him to do so, trusting him that far.

Harold licked his lips and said desperately, "Choose one."

John hesitated a moment, looking down at the tray. He reached out a hand slowly, past the cords and ties, hovering over the nipple clamps; then abruptly his hand jerked to the side, and he chose one of the larger cock rings instead.

Color rushed into his face; he avoided Harold's eyes as he held it out. Harold had to force himself to move, to take it. "That will be all," he said to the waiter, who vanished. He held the ring in his hands a moment, looking at it instead of looking at John. He could understand the rationale: restraints and blindfolds were too dangerous, when at any moment John might have to act to save Lydia's life. Plugs were surely exceptionally distracting, and clamps would be painful, a point of vulnerability in a fight.

This was a different kind of trust: John had chosen the safest, the best option for the situation, trusting him with the physical intimacy required. That was a calming thought. Harold drew an even breath and said, "Stand up."

John rose to his feet easily, his legs spread slightly. There was still a beautiful flush in his cheeks, and he had fixed his eyes somewhere in the distance. He was breathing through parted lips, chest rising and falling. He didn't flinch from Harold's hands brushing his inner thighs.

Harold had never used sex toys before, but the ring was trivial: a latch on the front opened the circle; one on the back opened out a soft net, which could be tightened or loosened. He secured the ring around the base of John's cock, then slid the net over John's balls, carefully, and adjusted it to what he hoped was a reasonably comfortable snugness. The simple mechanics were comforting: devices had never posed any kind of difficulty for him. It had always been other things, if Harold dwelled on them, that could entangle him beyond bearing. Unfortunately those were in no short supply here, either: trust, affection, _love_.

John's breath was quickening as he worked; his cock—the skin so astonishingly soft—was rising and swelling. Surely that was the right—the desired outcome. It was mechanical, nothing more, but Harold found his own breath coming up short. He finished and murmured, "All right?" very softly.

"Yes," John said, so quietly Harold wasn't quite sure he'd heard it. John licked his lips and repeated a little more strongly, "Yes."

Harold had to look away again, and noticed to his concern that they were drawing more looks from around the room. John was of course simply—spectacular; in his beauty and in his submission: standing tall with his cock hard and flushed, the shining silver ring gleaming out from the soft dark hair at his groin. His skin was faintly damp with sweat, golden in the candlelight, and anyone would have been proud to claim him.

Harold knew his inaction _was_ conspicuous: who, having spent a fortune to be here, to have this man under his hands for a night, would waste even a minute of that time? He rose from the couch and walked around Reese, slowly, as one might circle a work of art, a priceless statue, the David, but as a proprietor. "I'm going to touch you, if I may," he said very softly, giving John the chance to object. John's throat worked; then he inclined his head fractionally.

Even granted permission, Harold rationed himself. He touched John's shoulder to adjust his posture; took him by the wrists and shifted them upward a little to throw out his chest a little more; a brief stroke to the small of his back, to encourage more of an arch. He came back around to his seat. John was staring blindly ahead, wildly erect now; Harold hesitated, then put his hands on John's waist and turned him slightly, to face the couch more directly; selfishly, he didn't want John on display for the room.

He was desperately hard himself by now. He would have loved to take John's cock into his mouth, or grasp it, to bring him to completion; then to have John kneel for him—Harold abruptly beckoned over one of the waiters and ordered a glass of water; he drank deep and urgently, and then stepped towards John and held the glass to his lips. John drained it in a few desperate gulps, licking his lips. Harold drew the glass away; John looked at it and then looked away again, oddly quickly. Harold looked at it: a few large pieces of ice remaining, skimming the inside.

He hesitated, and then said to John softly, "Ice?"

John didn't say anything for a moment. "Seems like an arthouse kind of thing," he murmured back, his voice strange, as though he were trying for levity and failing. "Since you're going for subtle." He looked away again, almost a guilty expression crossing his face.

Harold was feeling increasingly unsubtle. He knew, distantly, that he should refuse; he had done enough to forestall any immediate suspicion. There weren't eyes on them at the moment. It was unnecessary.

He tipped one of the pieces of ice out into his hand. John's eyes closed at the first touch. Harold drew the ice along John's cheek, over his jaw, down the column of his throat; John was tipping his head back, baring himself. He was gasping for breath, his ribcage rising under Harold's hands. Harold braced himself against John with one hand as he dragged the ice in great swooping wet curves, outlining the muscles of his chest.

His own heart was pounding furiously. He felt—intoxicated, worse than intoxicated; unmoored. A precise series of steps laid itself out in his mind. He would stroke the ice over John's nipples, hold it on them until they grew sensitive and peaked; he would lick them with his tongue, to have the contrast of heat. He would drag the ice down over John's flat belly, and swipe it up again over his inner thighs; tease the underside of his cock, outline the head, until John was shuddering; then thrust him down on the couch and—

His phone buzzed abruptly in his pocket, breaking through the haze of fantasy. Harold halted. He lifted his hand away, wet: the ice had melted to nothing against the heat of John's skin. He took his other hand off John's chest and sat down on the couch with great care and precision. He forced himself to draw several breaths; then he checked the phone.

The server had found nearly twenty photographs with matches for other people in the room, all of them from the auction itself and taken over the last five years—evidently Lydia had been an early iPhone adopter, and she'd transferred her photos with each replacement. Jacob Astin was regularly present: there were photos of him from each previous year, standing with Lydia and Cecilia; Michael Greene appeared only in the last two. Before then, Astin was alone, and looked somewhat more dour. Happiness seemed unlikely to make a man commit murder, however.

There were a scattered number of other matches; Lydia and Cecilia with other attendees, but nothing that caught Harold's eye at a glance, until one taken three years before—another photograph with Michael Greene, but not with Astin; instead Greene was standing, subdued and eyes downcast, beside a different man, a remarkably handsome one, tall and chiseled and well-built, in an expensive suit.

Harold looked up automatically to catch John's eye: John was standing very still; his face looked stunned and almost hollowed-out. He flinched when he caught Harold looking at him, then he blinked and shook himself slightly and looked down at the phone screen. He straightened at once, like a hunting dog on the scent; he turned. Harold followed his line of sight to the last couch in the room, where the unidentified man was sitting—ignoring his own slave, a disappointed-looking woman, almost completely; his eyes were fixed on Greene. His face was impassive, but a muscle jumped in the corner of his jaw.

Harold dived into a quick search: in moments he had a name, Frederick Pouilly, and a list of six or seven domestic violence complaints, all dropped for lack of evidence. Greene and Pouilly had actually shared an address for five years, in fact since Greene had dropped out of college, a degree in art which he had only resumed the previous year—after moving in with Astin, instead.

"Why go after Lydia?" John murmured; he'd been following Harold down the trail. "Why not Astin?"

"An excellent question," Harold muttered. He considered the options, then tried cracking Greene's gmail account, quickly successful; a search for Lydia's name brought up half a dozen messages from l.althorpe. _I meant what I told you,_ the first said. _I'll help you get away. Life is too short to be unhappy, Michael. Don't condemn yourself just because the world doesn't approve of what you want._

"She helped him leave the ex," John said.

"And likely introduced him to his new lover," Harold said, glancing over at Astin, who had positioned himself between Michael and any view of Pouilly's couch, protectively.

"Makes sense," John said. He glanced at Pouilly. "Doesn't have a gun."

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure," John said.

Harold nodded and broke into Pouilly's credit cards; nothing suspicious, but that was hardly conclusive: if he had come with murderous intent, paying with cash for any necessary supplies was not the sort of precaution that required genius-level intellect. He shook his head briefly. "Nothing obvious," he murmured.

John nodded slightly.

There was nothing to do but keep watching, forewarned now, until Pouilly made his move. Harold turned off the phone and put it away again.

Of course, that meant the distraction was gone. Harold was grateful to have had the interruption nonetheless. He sat quietly for a moment, keeping his hands on his knees, and collected himself. The urgent press of desire hadn't faded, but the brief feverish impulse had passed. He knew very well that all people were prey to loss of control; it hadn't saved him in the moment, but he did not waste time now on self-castigation. What was more important was deciding how to proceed.

The situation resolved itself into a familiar shape as he considered it: deep in the middle of a flawed piece of code, having missed something crucial in the design stage. He looked up. Reese had never changed position, the entire time, but he was looking away, his eyes apparently focused on a point slightly past Pouilly: watching him with peripheral vision. There was no emotion in John's face; he had gone perfectly blank, sliding behind a mask. Masks, of course, were only worn to hide things.

There was going to be very little time to unravel his own assumptions; the waiters were coming again with the next course, a selection of floggers and whips and leather belts. Harold considered the options: the best way to minimize the effect would be to select some of the belts, and then use them for superficial titillation: buckling them around John's waist and thighs, stroking him with the ends of the leather straps. Harold could easily while away a quarter of an hour forming an elaborate interlacing, barely touching John the entire time.

The waiter presented the tray. Harold saw John glancing down at it.

Harold looked at it a moment. Then he reached out and instead chose the softest flogger, which didn't really deserve the name: it was only a knotted bunch of strips of velvet. John flicked a startled, uncertain look at Harold's face and away. "Thank you," Harold said to the waiter, sending him away. He rose from the couch. John's eyes were fixed on his hands. Harold gently flung the ends of the long strips over John's shoulder, then dragged the knot back towards him, the soft strips sliding one after another over John's shoulder and tumbling down his chest, a tease. John drew a sharp breath.

Harold watched him. "John," he said, and waited patiently until Reese swallowed and looked him at last in the face: his eyes looked almost stricken. "Would you like to be very good for me?" Harold asked quietly.

John stared at him wildly for a moment, and then he blurted out, "Yes," and looked away immediately, as though he hardly believed what he was saying.

Harold let go a breath he hadn't quite registered taking in: he'd found the right algorithm after all. "Good," he said softly. "Then hold still."

He flogged John with the velvet tails for ten minutes, irregularly; soft caressing blows curling over John's shoulders and against his back, across his chest, between his legs. John was swaying slightly where he stood, the rough equivalent of a staggering drunk from anyone else, his head tipped back slightly; he was dragging in enormous breaths.

Harold paused a moment and stroked John gently, running his hand along the curve from John's neck to his shoulder. All around them, soft gasps and cries were rising, accompanying the crack of whips. Harold was not tempted even a little to look elsewhere; he couldn't drag his eyes from John's face. John was breathing through parted lips, his eyes shining and dazzled and wet. He was beautiful beyond measure.

The waiters were coming around again with still more supplies: condoms and lubricant and an array of more complex toys, dildos, vibrators, beads. Harold contemplated the more exotic options, but they seemed unnecessary. The silicone-based lubricant was pleasant texturally; he tested it between two fingers, rubbed to be certain it wouldn't grow tacky, then nodded the waiter away.

John was still watching him try the lubricant, something half-afraid in his face. Harold was reasonably certain he now understood the basic parameters of the situation, but there might be additional variables. Harold considered the necessary conditionals, how to give John a choice without breaking the fantasy. "If you want me to finish this," he said softly, finally, "you'll need to beg me."

John heaved a breath and didn't say anything at first. Then he whispered, "Not—not if this is never going to happen again."

"Any time you like," Harold said immediately, and John flinched almost as though he'd been struck; he took a small jerking step towards him and said at once, "Please. Please, Harold, _please,_ " sounding almost drugged, his voice low and intensely urgent, rising, until Harold put his fingers on John's lips. John hushed at once. Harold cupped John's face, drew him in and kissed him; John leaned into the kiss hungrily.

"Any time you like," Harold repeated softly, holding John's face: John met his eyes again at last, some hard tension in him uncoiling slowly, warily. "I'm not interested in the situation, John. I'm interested in _you_."

John huffed out a small laugh. "And here I thought I'd finally learned some of your secrets," he murmured: flippant, but that wariness was gone; he was brightening, as though he was allowing himself to believe.

"Well," Harold said, "I won't deny the collar has some appeal." He slid his fingers deliberately under the thin band of it and tugged gently; John went heavy-lidded and leaned towards him.

"Yes," John said, hoarsely, and kissed him urgently.

Harold could with pleasure have simply kept kissing John, for hours. But the spotlight was drawing near them: Lydia and Cecilia were entwined beneath it now, Cecilia arched and crying softly, her wrists bound and faintly pink stripes marking her thighs and belly, Lydia's dark head bent between her legs. And while Harold could equally with pleasure have done any number of other things to John, none of those, he suspected, were going to be at all conducive to stopping whatever Pouilly meant to do.

"John," Harold said, panting, while John kissed his throat, "John—"

"Mm," John murmured, not pausing. He was toying with Harold's belt.

Harold caught John's hands, and when John looked up at him, cut his eyes meaningfully towards Lydia. John groaned faintly and let his forehead sink against Harold's chest.

"Perhaps if I just pretended to bind your wrists," Harold murmured, helplessly.

"You know what," John said, "I've got a better idea."

He stood up abruptly and walked across the room, stopping by one of the startled waiters and taking the tray of sex toys out of his hands. Harold sat up, feeling fairly conspicuous: many of the others were staring. John continued on; Pouilly half rose as John approached him, eyes widening in anger, about to say something. John calmly shoved a ball gag into his opening mouth, spun him easily around and pushed him onto his face, and cuffed his wrists together over his head to the couch. Pouilly, making muffled noises, tried to kick; John caught his ankles and cuffed them to the other end.

He turned to Pouilly's neglected slave, who was blinking up at him in surprise, and offered her a small cat of nine tails. "See how he likes it the other way around," he said.

Harold watched bemused as John came back to him. There was a faint smattering of very discreet applause as John crossed back to the couch; several others toasted them with their champagne: evidently Pouilly's inaction had been observed and disapproved. John slipped Harold a small packet as he sat down: a handful of tiny pills, likely some kind of poison. "Shouldn't we arrange to deliver him to the police?" Harold said, tucking it carefully into his pocket.

John shrugged. "No rush."

Harold looked over: Pouilly's slave was enthusiastically flogging him. "I do see your point."

"Besides," John said, "I think we're up."

The spotlight was swinging gently over. "Yes," Harold murmured, stroking the back of his hand against John's cheek. "Are you quite sure, John? We could wait until we had more privacy."

"Harold," John said, very calmly, "please fuck me right now."


End file.
